My two very firstposts, and with them the creation of this blog happened exactly 5 years ago today, in 2003. Since then the blog has come a long way: From an initial readership of zero it has grown to nearly 3,000 direct visits per day, plus 2,000 readers of the RSS feed. I don't have a total of the RSS feed readers (which are only estimated by feedburner anyway), but the total of visitors is over 1.8 million.

Even more important to me is the smaller core of regular readers and commenters, who have managed to get something like a community going, with every post receiving dozens of intelligent comments, and only very few troll posts. While the discussion sometimes gets heated, in general the community here has much higher standards than those of typical official game sites or rant forums.

So I would like you thank you all for your intelligent and polite contributions. If you browse through the 5 years of history of this blog, you will find that it was the feedback from readers that encouraged me to continue. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you!
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 7:00 AM Permanent Link
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Comments:

Been reading your blog for at least a year now - thank you for all your insight over these years!

Among all the MMO websites, forums, and blogs I've frequented since I got into MMOs, yours is the only one I've consistently read without fail. Also, thank you for staying true to the spirit of blogging and simple discourse, and not attempting to make money or use the influence you have now. I suspect that is one of the big reasons why you have so many people consistently reading and responding. =)

Happy 5th Blog Birthday Tobold. Although I rarely manage to coincide with you in the games we are playing your blog remains on my daily must read list - there is always something entertaining to be read in either the blog or the comments. Very Well done Tobie.

Been reading this blog for some time now. Even started commenting, which i do rarely. The interesting posts and mostly intelligent reactions make this place worth the time spent. Keep up the good work & congrats:)

A big congrats on your 5th blogiversary (?) I remember when I first started reading your blog, about 4 years ago. Your analysis has always been good, but in the last year in particular I've really enjoyed seeing you get community recognition, as shown by your WWI interview!

Many thanks for providing all of your readership with food for thought, and I look forward to continuing to enjoy your blog in the months and years ahead!

Congratulations! I have been reading ever since my company put in a firewall that blocks almost all game related sites and I came across your blog. I don't miss the forums much at all, for the very reasons you mentioned. Discussions here are by and large intelligent and civil.

Congrats on an amazing 5 years blogging anniversary. Your articles are always a good read. Even for those blog entries with topics I am at that time not interested in (like PotBS or the fuss about RMT).

You probably shouldnt label your own writings as prophetic Tobold:D Although this second article is an amazingly accurate assessment of the games potential. But the several 100k players estimate was somewhat on the conservative side:)

Remarkable how strong this game still is, 4 years later. But that may have something to do with the lack of quality competition.

I've been reading now for around 2 years and been commenting sporadically for at least a year. Definitely some insight into the game but more importantly this place has become a platform to share comments and ideas for all forms of games.

Congratulations and best wishes! All the reasons why people read you blog consistently have been said, so I won't go into that. Let's say that the well presented and well defined opinions combined with excellent writing style make your blog a pleasure to read, day after day, week after week.

Congratulations for 5 years of quality blogging. I've been reading the blog for about a year now or maybe 1 ½ years and pretty much all of the posts I have read have been well written and interesting. Your blog has also introducted me to a few other blogs too (Bildo's and Keen and Graev).